I am a few days behind on this piece, but as someone who has occasionally posted NYT pieces on rap here, I find this dissection of their attitude towards rappers names interesting, but somewhat unnecessary.

For what it's worth, I think the Time reporting on rap is not held back by their bizarre policy towards names, but rather what that policy reflects--that even if the report is a head, or someone who has at least listened to a rap album, the editors are not. That ultimately hip-hop reporting is being stunted at the times because those in charge of assigning stories still see it as somewhat under the radar, or something new and faddish--not a viable culture that has been around for 30 or so years, not a genre of music that has had some of the best-selling records of the last decade.

Take, for example, this Lil Mama piece--the fact that there is cross-over between rap and pop is treated as newsworthy, rather than something that is fairly par for the course. By framing the story about how wacky it is that Lil Mama is cross-over, they fail at the inherent appeal of the story, which is the fact that she's an awesome spitta, despite her more commercial stuff.

The NYT does it's best, but as the name conundrum shows, the more it tries to report, the more out of its element it reveals itself to be.